Out Of Tune

LOGLINE

A strip club performer realises that it is not just her piano that is out of tune.

SYNOPSIS

Maria plays an out of tune piano on the stage of a strip club. Her mind is elsewhere, cut off from her customers and co-workers, until she is brought down to earth by the simple and youthful honesty of Emma.

After the international success of Fran Apprich's short film 'The Cat', she was selected by the UKFC to move forward as the first director in Northern Ireland to be selected to take part in the Deviate Plus Scheme.

She worked closely with script editor Steve Brookes to get the script in shape, and the film was fully green lit by both the UKFC & NIFTC.

Once again the award-winning writer/director & producer partnership of Fran Apprich & Gawain Morrison came together to work on ‘Out Of Tune’. Having worked together on Deviate it seemed only right to come together for Deviate Plus. DoP Damien Elliott, who was a large creative factor in helping 'The Cat' wins it's several cinematography awards also came back to join them, as well as gaffer David Bates.

The star of this short was Janee Rambocus, an actress from Dublin, who having obtained an M.A. in Acting, in a School of Acting, in London, went on to appear in various stage plays, and more recently appeared in the short film ‘Nuts’, by the legendary Irvine Welsh. Janee played the part of Maria.

The young talent on the short is called Jenna McCormick, from Young Stars Agency, in Belfast. She is 13 and played the part of Emma, the young girl who has lost her youth in the environment of a strip club.

Also appearing in the short are Hugh Yeaman, Caitriona McKeever, Dianne Capmbell, Mary Preston Silver & Helen Sloan.

The film was shot on location in 'Vicos', one of Belfast's historical club vernues, over Saturday 28th & Sunday 29th April.

Nick Fletcher from JVC was very interested in working with Damien Elliott on this project, as we were the first film to use the new Super 16 lens adaptor for their JVC HDV camera, and as such they have used screen grabs and stills for their adverts in May's issue of Broadcast magazine. The stills below will give you some idea of how stunning the images are, and how effective this lens adaptor really is when providing a filmic look to a digital recording.

[Photos courtesy of Helen Sloan]

A big thank you must go out to all who helped us on this shoot, from the funding agencies through to the owners/managers of the locations, via all of our cast & crew ... it was a big ask to get this film made in the way we wanted, and you were all very important in helping us to achieve that. Thank you.

Click here to read the script.

JVC Super 16 Ad For Broadcast

Recording The Piano

Miguel Ortiz, is a Mexican student studying a PhD in Composition at the Sonic Arts Research Centre [SARC], Queens University, Belfast. He came to the club location to record the 'out of tune' piano in situ. The video clip shows the director, Fran Apprich, holding the field recorder microphone, whilst Miguel hits various keys along the piano.

Apologies for the poor picture & sound as I only had my mobile phone with me at the time, and I didn't want to miss recording this.

With this film we have always wanted to provide the maximum production value possible so we decided early on that we would go for a Dolby 5.1 Surround mix so that we could deliver a 5.1 DVD and at a later stage, if ever we decided to go to print, then we had a 5.1 mix to accompany it.

It was a grand day out for both Gawain Morrison [producer] and Gordon Delap [audio effects & dolby pre-mix] who had an early start to make it to Ardmore Sound Studios in Bray, south of Dublin, for 9am [it turned out to be closer to 10am Gordon McCrea’s precision directions!].

They stopped off at Another Avenue, where Mark kindly handed over a Beta SP to take with them, and were welcomed by the Ardmore folks with a cup of coffee and some biscuits and then we got cracking into the job at hand .. the 5.1 mix.

Michelle was our dolby mixer for the day and she was superb bringing the various scenes to life with subtle movements of sound.

A Trip To Ardmore Sound [2.7Mb]

This is a very short movie clip of Michelle in action

Apologies for the poor picture & sound as this is from my mobile phone.


	1 Not So Hot At 5.30am

CAST

MARIA

EMMA

DANCING GIRL

CUSTOMER

CREW

DIRECTOR

PRODUCER

1ST AD

DoP

FOCUS PULLER

TRAINEE CAMERA ASSISTANT

GAFFER

SOUND RECORDIST

BOOM OPERATOR

PRODUCTION DESIGNER

ASSISTANT ART DEPT

PROPS ASSISTANT

WARDROBE

TRAINEE WARDROBE ASSISTANT

HAIR & MAKEUP

HAIR & MAKEUP ASSISTANT

CHOREOGRAPHER

CHAPERONES

STILLS PHOTOGRAPHER

CONTINUITY

RUNNER

LOCATIONS

CATERING

LIGHTING

CAMERA

STEADICAM

INSURANCE

EDITOR

SOUND DESIGN & PRE-MIX

ORIGINAL MUSIC PERFORMED

ORIGINAL MUSIC COMPOSED

MUSIC ARRANGED BY

DOLBY MIX

ONLINE FACILITY

EXEC PRODUCER

SPECIAL MENTION TO

JANEE RAMBOCUS

JENNA MC CORMICK

HELEN SLOAN

MICHAEL MC CURLEY

FRANZISKA-MARIA APPRICH

GAWAIN MORRISON

CHIARA-JANE GRINDLE

DAMIEN ELLIOTT

RAY CARLIN

BRENDAN MULLIN

DAVID BATES

DEREK HEHIR

TERRY MC DONALD

KONRAD HALLER

ADAM FLEMING

KITTY MC AULEY

ANNA MC CAUGHTRY

JO ROBERTS

PATRICIA WAUGH

LISA STEWART

EILIONIOR FEGAN [POLERCISE]

MARK & LIZ MC CORMICK

HELEN SLOAN

ANDREW PARKHILL

KEVIN MC DONALD

VICOS & BOTANICAL GARDENS, BELFAST

CAFE EXPRESS, BELFAST

PANAVISION BELFAST

JVC LONDON

OPTICAL SUPPORT LONDON

MEDIA INSURANCE GLASGOW

DEREK JONES

GORDON DELAP

MIGUEL ORTIZ PEREZ & FRAN APPRICH

MIGUEL ORTIZ PEREZ

MICHELLE CUNNIFFE @ ARDMORE SOUND

ANOTHER AVENUE

HUGH MC GRORY

STEPHEN ADAMS, HUGH YEAMAN, DYLAN MC CAUGHTRY, CAITRIONA MC KEEVER, DIANE CAMPBELL, MARY PRESTON SILVER

Thanks to:

Andrew Reid, Christine Morrow, Elsie Brown, Susie Wright, Northern Ireland Screen, UKFC, Lifesize Pictures, Damian McParland, Steve Brookes, Astolfo, Marcello, Fabrizio, Mary, Michael & Davy @ Vicos, Patrick Duncan, Gerard @ Young Stars Agency, Irish Film Centre, Gerry Morgan @ DRDNI, Belfast City Council, Reg Maxwell, Alex McNeill & Tony The Ranger @ Belfast Parks, Andrea & Julie @ Travelodge, Nick Fletcher @ All At JVC, Chris @ Optical Support, Angus Mitchell, Panavision, John O’Sullivan @ Media Insurance, Richard & Fiona @ Jetstream Logistics, Enterprise Car Hire, Lyndsays Car hire, Robert Black @ East Belfast City Mission, Adeline @ Hugs & Kisses, Don @ Don’s Pizza Parlour [Ballymena], Brian Flemming, Anthony Getty, Uel Stirling, SARC, Oonagh & Campbell Morrison, Del Boy Jones, Mark & Sharon @ Another Avenue

Lottery Funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland through

Made with the support of the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund